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Thanks, Joe.

Time to reflect on those who have achieved far more in less time. I’ll never forget turning 26 and being so depressed because I hadn’t published anything yet and John Keats had written La Belle Dame Sans Merci and died by that age.

Here’s a list of people who are roughly the same age as me:

Flea

Michael Jordan

Tatum O’Neal

Coolio

Russell Crowe

Johnny Depp

Brad Pitt

Conan O’Brien

Calista Flockhart

Marisa Tomei

Jon Stewart

Whitney Houston

Bjork

Here is a list of people who are/were roughly the same height as me:

Brooke Shields (met her on an airplane once — she was really cheerful)

Russell Crowe (doesn’t he seem taller?)

Mel Gibson (I know he seems taller)

Nicole Kidman (doesn’t she seem shorter?)

Jean-Claude Van Damme (now he seems shorter)

Princess Diana (she’s a lot thinner these days, too)

Woman with the same bra size as me:

Gina Gershon (says Jack, “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”)

Poet with the same birthday as me:

Philip Levine, b. 1928

My sister-in-law Lisa sent me The Wizard of Oz and Willy Wonka on DVD. I adore Gene Wilder. Jack’s mom sent me a cake that looks like it will just about put me in a coma. And Jackson gave me the greatest gift of all — he slept from 8:00 p.m. last night until 7:00 a.m. this morning and I got nine full hours of sleep.

*     *     *     *

it’s all right

small cheap rooms where you walk

down the hall to the

bathroom can seem romantic to

a young writer.

even the rejection slips are

amusing because you are sure that

you are

one of the best.

but while sitting there

looking across the room

at the portable typer

waiting for you on the table

you are really

in a sense

insane

as you wait for

one more night to arrive to sit and

type Immortal Words — but now you

just sit and think about it

on your first afternoon in a strange city.

looking over at the door you

almost

expect a beautiful woman to walk in.

being young

helps get you through

many senseless and terrible

days.

being old

does

too.

Charles Bukowski

I have yet another new comments system, I hope and pray it will be the last. Please give it a try. Many thanks to yaccs.

My great aunt LaVerne died. She was 98-1/2 years old. She broke her hip and then an infection set in, then she got pneumonia and died. My father calls pneumonia “the old person’s friend,” I guess because it’s a relatively nonviolent way to end life. One of my few vivid memories of LaVerne is that she looked so much like her brothers Harry and Roy that when they got older you couldn’t tell which was a man’s face and which was a woman’s. Just like in babies, there was no difference between masculine or feminine features.

I was looking for something on death in Sharon Olds’s “The Dead and the Living” but I found this instead.

Rite of Passage

As the guests arrive at my son’s party

they gather in the living room –

short men, men in first grade

with smooth jaws and chins.

Hands in pockets, they stand around

jostling, jockeying for place, small fights

breaking out and calming. One says to another

How old are you? Six. I’m seven. So?

They eye each other, seeing themselves

tiny in the other’s pupils. They clear their

throats a lot, a room of small bankers,

they fold their arms and frown. I could beat you

up, a seven says to a six,

the dark cake, round and heavy as a

turret, behind them on the table. My son,

freckles like specks of nutmeg on his cheeks,

chest narrow as the balsa keel of a

model boat, long hands

cool and thin as the day they guided him

out of me, speaks up as a host

for the sake of the group.

We could easily kill a two-year-old,

he says in a clear voice. The other

men agree, they clear their throats

like Generals, they relax and get down to

playing war, celebrating my son’s life.

Jackson had his six-month check-up yesterday, he’s in the 90th percentile for height (27 3/4″), the 75th for weight (18 lbs. 6 oz.), and the 95th for head circumference (a whopping 18 1/4″) — finally, part of him that will take after me, I have bestowed upon him the lifelong challenge of finding a hat that fits.

Time for resolutions! Mine this year is to dress better — I spent the last six months wearing t-shirts and jeans or anything that Jackson could cheese with impunity, and the six months before that wearing a pair of 40-waist Levi’s and any shirt that would cover my belly. Now it’s time to spruce it up a bit. (Something for Daddy, dontcha know.)

Lakers won last night even without Shaq and his injured toe. I had scoffed at the inability of such a big man to deal with such a small problem, so the gods punished me by giving me a blocked milk duct — my right breast got really hard and I had to cover it with a heating pad set on high and then massage it (ouch) while I nursed Jackson with a cracked nipple, which I believe is the equivalent of walking 20 blocks with a blister on your heel. So I’ve gained some sympathy for the milionaire and his arthritic toe.

New link on the right to The Plagiarist, a good source for modern poetry. Here’s one of my favorites.

Why I Am Not A Painter

I am not a painter, I am a poet.

Why? I think I would rather be

a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg

is starting a painting. I drop in.

“Sit down and have a drink” he

says. I drink; we drink. I look

up. “You have sardines in it.”

“Yes, it needed something there.”

“Oh.” I go and the days go by

and I drop in again. The painting

is going on, and I go, and the days

go by. I drop in. The painting is

finished. “Where’s sardines?”

All that’s left is just

letters. “It was too much,” Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of

a color: orange. I write a line

about orange. Pretty soon it is a

whole page of words, not lines.

Then another page. There should be

so much more, not of orange, of

words, of how terrible orange is

and life. Days go by. It is even in

prose, I am a real poet. My poem

is finished and I haven’t mentioned

orange yet. It’s twelve poems, I call

it oranges. And one day in a gallery

I see Mike’s painting, called sardines.

Frank O’Hara

It’s amazing how relaxed things are between me and my parents now that I’m married and have a baby. I used to really struggle with feeling misunderstood and invisible; but now, it’s not about my neurotic little problems anymore, it’s about us loving them and them loving their beautiful grandson and us. I’ve never had a real deep relationship with my mom, but just sitting on the couch next to her, playing with the baby, watching the Broncos beat the Raiders with my dad — just talking about nothing — I can’t remember being so comfortable doing that.

My brother Tim gave Jack a ticket to the aforementioned football game as a Christmas present. Jack said that everyone in the stadium sang the national anthem together, instead of having it be performed by some Top 40 singer trying to plug a new single. The way it’s supposed to be, he said: “It was like church.” Jack was also pleased to find that, after Tim had spent a good deal of time making Jack feel less than manly about being from California and not being able to deal with the cold, my brother eventually started shivering. They bet each other $5 every time the two teams meet, so I guess Jack was able to pay up in person this time. Whenever the Raiders lose to the Broncos Jack talks about paying Tim with five pounds of pennies or some other inconvenient way, but so far he hasn’t bothered.

Not to spoil the mood, but here’s the opposition’s response to all that good family feeling, by Philip Larkin.

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don’t have any kids yourself.